Airbnb in New York City

New York City is a city of renters, vacancy rates are at crisis levels, and rents continue to rise.

Income levels for the average New Yorker haven't kept pace, and affordability is at record lows. Housing is scarce; homelessness levels are increasing; food insecurity is growing; and economic and racial inequality rates in New York City are near the highest in the United States.

It's at this time that short term rental platforms, dominated by Airbnb, have entered the market, and grown to have listings of tens of thousands of rooms and entire apartments.

Airbnb addresses the demand for tourist accommodation and creates an income stream for "hosts," and ignores both the need for and loss of housing.

Behind buzzwords like "the sharing economy" and "disruptive," Airbnb as a platform simply allows many of their hosts to operate unlicensed, unregulated and untaxed hotels in residential neighborhoods.

The taxes that Airbnb refuses to collect for the city are being used as leverage in Airbnb's corporate lobbying and marketing campaigns to force the city and state to legitimize their business model and legalize Airbnb hosts' activities.

This "bribe" hides the fact that Airbnb is enabling a massive abuse of housing in New York City, and in particular, in rapidly changing and gentrifying neighborhoods.

Take Action!

If you feel strongly about the impact of Airbnb and want to strengthen enforcement, or the relevant laws, licensing, zoning or taxation that cover short term rentals in New York City, participate in the following ways:

talk to your neighbors, coop, building, block, tenants or merchants association about your feelings and explore how you can act together

contact your city or state elected officials

join or support the Share Better coalition which advocates for a responsible "sharing economy"

contact a local community-based organization in your neighborhood working on housing issues

consider creative uses of the Airbnb created hashtag #OneLessStranger, for e.g. "Rent to a New Yorker not a Tourist to create #OneLessStranger, #insideairbnb"

even if you are an Airbnb host, but support a well informed conversation about how Airbnb is affecting New York City and could be used responsibly, share this site or advocate for more data and a richer dialog

If you are a journalist, consider writing about what you learnt from the site about the impact of Airbnb on the city or your community.

If you are a statistician or civic hacker, get the data, analyze and publish your results. If you would like your visualizations hosted, or linked to from this site, please contact murray@murraycox.com.

Airbnb Opponents

The New York State Attorney General, Eric T. Schneiderman, has been actively pursuing issues with Airbnb, including the breaking of regulations and laws. In October 2014, his office released a report titled "Airbnb In The City" based on data provided by Airbnb in an out of court settlement after a subpoenia was issued.

Share Better is a coalition of friends, neighbors, community activists and elected officials. Their site has stories about experiences with Airbnb and information about Airbnb and the "sharing economy," and ways to get involved.

Liz Krueger is a New York State senator who represents the Upper East Side and is a determined Airbnb foe.

Data about Airbnb

Inside Airbnb

Inside Airbnb provides data compiled from the Airbnb web-site for listings available for New York City.

A conservative occupancy model has been built in order to estimate Occupancy Rates, Income per Month and Nights per Year. More information on the methodolgy of the occupancy model can be found in the disclaimers.

Inside Airbnb: New York City uses the following parameters:

A high availability metric and filter of 60 days per year

A frequently rented filter of 60 days per year

A review rate of 50% for the number of guests making a booking who leave a review

An average booking of 6.4 nights unless a higher minimum nights is configured for a listing. Airbnb reported 6.4 nights as the average length of stay for guests using Airbnb in New York

A maximum occupancy rate of 70% to ensure the occupancy model does not produce artifically high results based on the available data

If you are a statistician or civic hacker, get the data, analyze and publish your results.

If you would like your visualizations hosted, or linked to from this site, please contact murray@murraycox.com.

Airbnb

Airbnb provides NO PUBLIC DATA to help understand the use of their platform and the impact on cities around the world.

Airbnb also provide NO DATA to cities or states to assist them in ensuring that Airbnb hosts and Airbnb are following the local laws.

Other data

Until now, the main source of data on Airbnb has been the NYS Attorney General's Report, "Airbnb In The City" released in October 2014. The often quoted statistic from that report is that "75% of Airbnb's NYC rentals are illegal."

The Law

Local Law No. 45 of 2012 of New York City which covers the illegal conversion of a dwelling from permanent residences to other uses, notably short-stay hotel rooms. The law adds definitions of the type of conversions that are illegal, and increases fines for violations. The Legislative Findings include a "declaration of emergency" due to the lack of available apartments and cites a city-wide vacancy rate of only 3.12% in 2011.

There are other laws that might apply to an Airbnb host including taxes, rent regulation, zoning codes, business licensing and contracts including leases. Airbnb was forced in an out of court settlement to provide this information to their hosts.

Room Type

Depending on the room type, availability, and activity, an airbnb listing could be more like a hotel, disruptive for neighbors, taking away housing for New Yorkers, and illegal.

Only recent and frequently booked

Activity

###

estimated nights/year

##.#

reviews/listing/month

###,###

reviews

$###

price/night

##.#%

estimated occupancy

$###

estimated income/month

Airbnb guests may leave a review after their stay, and these can be used as an indicator of airbnb activity (although not all guests leave a review, so the actual booking activity would be much higher).

The minimum stay, price and number of reviews have been used to estimate a minimum income per month for each listing.

How does the income from running a defacto hotel (an Airbnb room or apartment) compare to a long-term lease for an average New Yorker?

And more importantly, what is renting to a tourist rather than a resident doing to our neighborhoods?

Availability

An Airbnb host can setup a calendar for their listing so that it is only available for a few days or weeks a year.

Other listings are available all year round (except for when it is already booked).

Entire homes or apartments highly available and rented frequently year-round to tourists, probably don't have the owner present, are illegal, and more importantly, are displacing New Yorkers.

Even private rooms or sublets have also traditionally been homes for many New Yorkers, so renting them to tourists instead also reduces housing supply.

Only multi-listings

Listings per Host

##.#%

multi-listings

##,###(##.#%)

single listings

#,###(##.#%)

multi-listings

Some Airbnb hosts have multiple listings.

A host may list separate rooms in the same apartment, or multiple apartments or homes available in their entirity.

Hosts with multiple listings are more likely to be running a business without a license and not paying taxes, and if they are renting out an entire home or apartment and aren't present, are probably doing so illegally.